


Ice

by leiascully



Series: The FBI's Most Unwanted [9]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Cold Weather, Episode Related, Gen, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2018-04-04 08:09:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4130652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She had drawn her weapon to face down Mulder, knowing he would yield to no one but her, hoping it was the right choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ice

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: 1.06 "Ice"  
> Disclaimer: _The X-Files_ and all related characters are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Studios. No profit is made from this and no infringement is intended.

Ice outside. Ice inside. Ice was a menace, was death. It grated at the windows and melted slowly in the malfunctioning freezer. She would be suspicious of ice for a few months, squinting at the cubes, looking for impurities.

She shouldn't have thrown the clips into the snow. She wasn't herself up here, with the wind howling outside the facility. There were no easy choices; everything was bleak and stark and death rattled the windows. She had drawn her weapon to face down Mulder, knowing he would yield to no one but her, hoping it was the right choice. Hoping he could read her good intentions. Knowing she would make the necessary choice. Knowing it was the last thing she wanted.

The others had put Mulder in quarantine and she could not say they were wrong. She had only the hope they were mistaken, the idea that if Mulder were taken over, she would know without question or qualification. She couldn't present that as evidence, not to scientists. Her objectivity was compromised. She knew it, but knew also that she would give up disbelief in an instant if credulity would save him. She had followed leads less tangible than smoke to find him, on the strength of his intuition. She would feel foolish trying to describe the bond between them. It was something fine and private, as inexplicable as any X-File. The others would imagine she was trying to save her lover, not her partner and she was helpless to explain the significance of their bond without reference to traditional signifiers.

He bowed his head at her request. She was struck by how boyish he looked, how tender and vulnerable, waiting for her touch to save him. She checked his neck, on tiptoe in her snow boots. Her ankles trembled a little against the strange confinement. His skin was so warm under her fingers. She had been cold for days as he exhaled heat. Even the overclocked radiator couldn't touch something frozen at the core of her, but it thawed here in this stark storage space. Just the two of them, shut away from the world, the first familiar ground she'd stood on since they'd gotten to Alaska.

His muscles yielded to the pressure of her thumbs. He smelled faintly of cedar and sweat and she breathed a little deeper. She quartered the breadth of his back, searching for anomalies, and only let out her breath when she found nothing strange. The strangest thing was how ordinary it felt to examine him, as if his body was known to her by proxy of their metaphysical connection. Maybe it was just turnabout from the night she'd knocked on his door and stripped off her robe. They had learned each other to the bone somehow.

She drew her fingers down his spine and released him. He looked at her over his shoulder, and she smiled wearily and let her head drop. Mulder relaxed. Scully turned, relieved, ready to tell the others. 

She gasped when he caught hold of her. She was terrified for an electric moment. She had been wrong. The person she trusted most would harm her. He was not who he was, and after, he would never be himself again, even if they found a cure. She knew Mulder; he would never forgive himself. But then he cupped his palm against the side of her face and gently turned her head and she understood. Quid pro quo; they redeemed each other's trust.

Mulder pulled the neck of her shirt down in a smooth, sure movement. Cold air touched the nape of her neck, and then Mulder's broad hand gripped her neck, anchoring her. His fingers were certain, playing over her prickling skin. She stood transfixed by his touch. She was breathing too fast. She concentrated in even exhalations as Mulder smoothed her skin with his palm. The silence between them was charged, questions waiting for answers that words could not contain.

When he took his hand away, it took a large measure of her composure not to stumble in her clumsy boots. She had braced herself against the strength of him. She glanced at him. He nodded at her, some equilibrium restored in the ritual of examination. They were who they were. They knew each other. She would not fear turning her back on Mulder. 

She could start there. Work the case. Solve the mystery. Cure the ill. They would leave the ice together when this was done. She would fill out a form for the lost ammunition and they would speak of the ice years later, and argue over the details, and remember a breathless, speechless moment of communion. 

With Mulder at her back, she reached out for the cold metal of the door.


End file.
